Rio Tinto to sell Ghana bauxite mine

Rio Tinto is selling its 80 percent stake in Ghana's only bauxite mine to Chinese minerals group Bosai, Rio said on Monday.

The London- and Sydney-listed firm has shelved an earlier plan to develop an integrated alumina refinery which would have been fed by the Awaso mine, as a result of poor local infrastructure and lower global demand for minerals.

"Apart from the prevailing unfavourable market conditions, the infrastructure is not ready yet for that programme ... the cost of power and the supply system has to improve," Rio spokesman Stefano Bertolli said.

The mine in Ghana produced 637,000 tonnes of the aluminium raw material, according to the firm's website.

The sale to Bosai, which produces alumina and aluminium in China, will be complete by the end of the year and is subject to approval by Ghana's parliament, Bertolli said.

"After careful consideration of various options, accelerated by a period of very tough economic market conditions, we decided to pursue sale of our share in GBC," he said, declining to identify the value of the sale.

By contrast to Awaso, Rio Tinto last year received 45 percent of output from the Sangaredi bauxite mine in nearby Guinea, amounting to almost 6 million tonnes.

Ghana's main mineral export is gold, of which it is Africa's second biggest producer.